I saw this going viral, from Less Wrong: Elon Musk May Be Transitioning to Bipolar Type I:
In 2023, Gwern published an excellent analysis suggesting Elon Musk exhibits behavioral patterns consistent with bipolar II disorder. The evidence was compelling: cycles of intense productivity followed by periods of withdrawal, risk-taking behavior (like crashing an uninsured McLaren), reduced sleep requirements during “up” phases, and self-reported “great highs, terrible lows.”
Many attempts have been made over the years to ‘armchair diagnose’ Elon Musk’s mental health or status. Such speculation is a product of confirmation biases and cherry picking and should be disregarded.
Elon Musk is one of the most scrutinized people alive in the 20+ years he has been famous, and whose fame has only surged in recent years more so than anyone else alive, as other celebrities have come and gone or faded from relevance (e.g. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates). As I correctly predicted in 2021, Elon has not faded, but his star continues to rise and shine to heights never before imagined–from ‘rocket man’ in 2018 to now in 2025 the right-hand man of the POTUS himself.
Anyone can look for signs of anything if they look hard enough. A biographer can cast a huge net to find former employees, who may have dirt or are disgruntled, as evidence of mental illness. Someone sufficiently determined can come up with enough anecdotal evidence to put together a convincing diagnosis or narrative of mental illness that would convince a typical reader. This is the classic Walter Isaacson formula, although he’s not the only biographer who does this.
Given the huge network of former and current employees and associates who worked with Musk, from his early days at PayPal and Zip2, to Tesla and Space-X, finding enough anecdotes to compile into a full-sized biography should not be hard to do. And then these anecdotes are compiled, with the most salacious anecdotes chosen.
Moreover there are plenty of non-famous people who exhibit such traits as ‘compulsivity’ or ‘over-excitability’. These emotions are situational too, and alone insufficient to diagnose mental illness. If I just bought a new car, maybe I would feel both of those emotions. Who doesn’t feel excited when engrossed in something important–for Musk that would be rockets or cars–compared to gambling or watching sports for ‘typical’ people. Does the huge of popularity of online gambling and sports betting mean all the millions of people who use these apps now have some undiagnosed mental illness? Conversely, when someone has bad news, like the loss of a pet, the death of a family member, or being fired, there are emotional lows, again showing how situational most of this is.
Depending on which anecdotes or chosen or omitted, a flattering or unflattering portrayal of the subject is constructed, depending the author’s biases or what will maximize sales. Typically, this means an overemphasis on the subject’s negative or idiosyncratic traits, in which decade’s of the subject’s life are compressed into only the most interesting or revealing tidbits.